What I Should Have Said

We all know those situations where someone says something and it leaves us completely flabbergasted. 3 hours later, when our brains are working at the normal speed again, it hits us: the perfect, witty, intelligent, fitting remark that would stop the other person in their tracks and put an end to their ___________ [chose word like "stupid jokes", "abuse", "insults",...].

Or it might probably be the perfect, intelligent, unbeatable argument.

[Or it might be the funny, charming and intelligent thing we couldn't say to the guy/girl we like. But that's another story.]

And sometimes, even after three hours, days, months, I’m still screaming inside my head ”FUCK YOU!” and I feel like my brain will never work at the same speed again.

Vienna, Vienna

Just found this. Use with caution – the plan’s accurate but if you ask people where Michael Farmers Station is, they’ll give you blank stares.

quick good night story

I should be in bed right now. But I had to share this with you. Studying my blog statistics, two things struck me as odd.

1. search term used: “joseph fiennes pregnant”
   I can honestly say: I hope he’s not! I keep getting flashs of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Junior. Though I really loved this movie when I was a kid, I don’t want to see it happen in real life…
2. Somebody translated my entry about German Lesson by Siegfried Lenz to German with the google translator. I know that usually, only crap comes from automatic translating programs but google saw it fit to translate my perfectly neutral “the teacher” into “die Lehrerin”, which is female and especially wrong because it was a male teacher in the book.
   I wouldn’t object to it if they made everything female but police officer stays male in the translation, as does painter and expressionist.
   Not fair and not good.

Sorry, if I wasn’t completely coherent, I’m very tired right now. Sleep.

— 

Edit:
Ok, I almost got six hours of sleep so I can see that my first point might be misunderstood. So a quick note on that:
I’d love to see men get pregnant. That would really be cool. But I wouldn’t want it to end up like in Junior with all the hiding and being followed and the complications.
Also, men have no pain threshold to speak of when sport’s not involved [I know, I'm generalising and prejudiced and sooo PunC but that's my experience], so I guess it could be easier to just get the child yourself.

Anyway, Joseph Fiennes, if you are pregnant, congratulations! And let the world know how it’s done! But only, if the child’s mother confirms that pregnant men are bearable. :P

Britishness

Mark Steel wrote a commentary for the Independent (K. told me about this, so all my thanks go to her). It’s about Gordon Brown and his wish that every British citizen should swear an oath of allegiance to the queen. [How do you spell rubbish?] 

Teenagers, he’s said, should have to “graduate” into true British citizens, to show they’ve encompassed Britishness. So maybe the boys will have lessons in subjects such as being sexually attracted to Helen Mirren. And teachers will say: “We’re very lucky today because Mrs Mirren has kindly agreed to sit at the front of the class for us so off you go. Come on Jenkins, start tingling boy, and Walcott, let’s have a bit of drooling shall we, this is a national treasure, surely the odd slobber isn’t too much to ask.”

Thank You!

Guys, thanks a lot! Yesterday was the first day since this blog exists that it had over a hundred hits! (101 to be exact!)

(That’s what shows up when you type “celebrating” in Google image search…)

O_o

Some time ago I posted links to various literary related stuff, one of them to the Bulwer-Lytton award where, in turn you could find the Bad Sex Award (see also liberrydwarf). Now, I just read it again – these sex scenes really are hilarious – when something I didn’t notice before caught my eye:

From The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis (Picador)

David Thewlis? David FUCKING Thewlis?

And yes, Prof. Lupin writes bad sex.

I’m devastated.

Flower Power

I finally came around to watching X (see Swen’s for how it started, the comment section). Or, to better phrase it, K. came around to hold my hand and explain things while I watched the movie.

I am not totally convinced of it’s quality but at least it made me research all the cherry blossoms. I mean, there are cherry blossoms everywhere – blood turns into them, people turn into them, dreams turn into them and as everything turns into them, they need to go somewhere so they are floating around everywhere – on top of Tokio tower, in back yards and again, in dreams.

So, this is what I found (here):

Cherry blossoms are the flowers most beloved by the Japanese. Because cherry blossoms have short blooming times and are fragile, they have been used to symbolize the transience of life; this symbolism meshed well with the teachings of Buddhism. Also, since cherry trees blossom en masse, they have also been used as metaphors for clouds. Fallen blossoms, not to be ignored, are likened to snow and later, as a metaphor for a warrior killed early in life.

I can’t say I understand X better now, though.

hmm

I think I mentioned before that I have a cleaning lady, the single most luxurious thing in my life.

Unfortunately, she speaks only little German and I speak only a little Russian, so communication with her is not always easy.

Today, she was there as usual and she asked me if I had a boyfriend. I was like “where is this heading?” but answered truthfully with no. Then she started to tell me about her friend, who is really nice and good-looking and that she wanted to give him my phone number and he speaks German, so I don’t have to worry about that.

I was so stunned that I couldn’t tell her that I’m not really into blind dates and that I think it’s really weird and she interpreted me not screaming no as me saying yes and gave this guy my phone number.

And all I keep thinking about is: “My cleaning lady is trying to set me up with a guy. Do I look that desperate?”

Movie News

There’s a new, German version of The Wave by Morton Rhue/Todd Strasser (Die Welle) coming to the movies. A book probably every child in school in Europe and the US had to read. Let’s see if that improves the popularity.

Christian Bale has a lot of interesting projects coming up – Killing Pablo (together with Javier Bardem), Public Enemies (together with Marion Cotillard, Johnny Depp and Giovanni Ribisi) and – I’m not sure what to think of that one – Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Motherless Brooklyn will finally be out some time this year. Directed and written by as well as starring Edward Norton. Should be good.

Alice in Wonderland has a real revival – first there’s the Tim Burton version, then the Marilyn Manson version with Tilda Swinton and finally the Marcus Nispel version with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Will be interseting to compare them.

2008 is also a Chuck Palahniuk year – Invisible Monsters and Choke are being made into movies. Also, Bret Easton Ellis can rejoice: he gets The Informers, Lunar Park and The Frog King. And another one of my favourites – Irvine Welsh – gets The Meat Trade.

I bet I could find another hundred movies to come out this year I want to watch but I need to go to bed now.

Sisters

K. and I had another cinema evening, this time watching The Other Boleyn Girl.

It was ok. Natalie Portman and Eric Bana played very well, Scarlett Johansson didn’t so much [but she usually doesn't. If she didn't have a nice ass I don't think she would be anywhere close to a screen].
Historically, as K. explained to me [I wouldn't know. I take my knowledge about this period from The Tudors, Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age], it wasn’t really accurate. As if reality wasn’t dramatic enough. But I guess you’ll have to blame Philippa Gregory for that.
Anyway,  it felt like a prequel to Elizabeth, but one where they didn’t use as much money, time or good writers like for Elizabeth.

This sounds really bad. It actually wasn’t. But it wasn’t as good as Elizabeth, which I’ve just seen, and it’s hard not to compare the two.

It’s worth a watch, but it’s not the best movie of all time. I’d give it an enthusiastic meh.

(It probably would have changed my mind if there had been more of naked Eric Bana, as I expected from the things I heard about the movie before…)